"Until the Day Ends" Turns Belgrade's Student Protests into a Love Story
Serbian filmmaker Jelena Maksimović has made her first fiction feature, and it is set in the student protests that filled the streets of Belgrade in early 2025. Variety described the film in a review published on 27 October 2026.
The film is called "Until the Day Ends," or "Do Kraja Dana" in its original language. Maksimović wrote and directed it. Her earlier features were nonfiction: "Taurunum Boy" in 2019 and "Homelands" in 2020.
The story follows two young people. Lena, a 20-year-old student activist, is played by Lena Trifunović. Stefan, 22, is played by Andrija Krivokapić. The two are drawn together by an act of rebellion, even though their political views appear to be opposed. Miodrag Dragicevic plays Milan, Lena's older brother. Paul Spengemann is the cinematographer.
The protests in the film are real. They were against the government and were triggered by the deaths of 16 people in 2024, when a train station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad. Variety reports that the film is set against those demonstrations in early 2025. The Venice Biennale's official synopsis describes Belgrade as a city split in two.
The film began its festival life in Venice, where it premiered in the Orizzonti section, the Biennale's showcase for newer and more experimental work. The Biennale lists it in its Cinema 2026 programme. According to Variety, it later screened in Vienna and Hamburg, and in the main competition in Tokyo.
Sales are moving too. Variety reported in July 2026 that Heretic had acquired world rights to the film. World rights are the right to sell a film in every territory, so one buyer can handle it everywhere rather than country by country. Variety Variety's Thessaloniki coverage in October 2026 lists the co-production partners as Serbia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Montenegro, Germany and Croatia. Variety
Co-productions like this one pool money and creative input from several countries. Each partner usually takes a share of the film's rights and returns, which is why a title can have several homes before it reaches a cinema.
For a general audience, the film's path is a useful picture of how festival films travel. A title is announced on a festival lineup in July, screens to critics and audiences in the autumn, and is passed between sales companies and buyers on the way to a screen.
